Simon Critchley

Simon Critchley is the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He also teaches at Tilburg University and the European Graduate School. His many books include Very Little...Almost Nothing, Infinitely Demanding, The Faith of the Faithless, and The Book of Dead Philosophers, which made The New York Times bestseller list. He is series moderator of “The Stone,” a philosophy column in The New York Times, to which he is a frequent contributor.

In their book 'Stay Illusion! The Hamlet Doctrine' Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster go in search of a particularly modern drama that is as much about ourselves as it is a product of Shakespeare’s imagination. They also offer a startling interpretation of the action onstage: it is structured around “nothing” — or, in the enigmatic words of the player queen, “it nothing must.”. Avoiding the customary clichés about the timelessness of the Bard, Critchley and Webster show the timely power of Hamlet to cast light on the intractable dilemmas of human existence in a world that is rotten and out of joint.